The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great "White Way"McGaffey, Kenneth
General
The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great "White Way"
McGaffey, Kenneth
Theater -- Fiction
"The gentlemen of the party called time and we sat down to the table.
She started putting on airs and telling what she knew about the Thaw
trial, so to let her know that I was right there I passed out this one,
'It's a cinch if anybody did any shooting to save your life he'll get
the chair the first throw out of the box, and the jury won't be out any
longer than it takes to get their hats, either.' Say, if she had had a
gun she'd have shot me. One of the gentlemen remarked to me, 'You don't
care for this young lady, do you?' I said, 'Sure, I like her. I like her
about as much as Bingham likes Jerome.'
"This female party started to drinking champagne as if it were suds, so
naturally it wasn't long before she got a snootful, and one of these
crying kind, all the party began to kid her until at last she sobbed,
'Well, there is always one place I can go to where I am welcome.' One of
the guys said, 'Yes, dearie, I know it, but it is after 1 o'clock now
and that place is closed.' Then little Bright Eyes beat it and we all
had a real nice evening after that. Oh! She's a smooth one, all right;
she nearly made me lose my job once if it hadn't been that the stage
manager was carrying my suitcase I would have been decorated with my
little two weeks out in the wilds somewhere. You see it was this way: We
had a tree, not the one Arthur owned, but another, and one of the
comedians had to stand inside of it for about fifteen minutes before he
could make his entrance--laughing number--this was only a dinky little
place and only had one small airhole. Well, this foxy dame stuffed this
airhole full of limberger cheese, so when it came time for his entrance
instead of coming forth blithe and gay as per book, the comedian came
out looking as if he had apoplexy, the same naturally causing the
merry-merry to giggle ad lib. Did you ever see a wild fish? Honest, when
that man came off I thought he was going to commit murder; what he said
on the subject is not for me to repeat. Right in the middle of the
harangue this dame remarks, 'I think it was Sabrina.'
"The next think she thunk was to wonder who let go of the asbestos
curtain, for I happened to overhear that 'aside' and bounced a
stage-brace on her think tank. If she had gone on again that night it
would have been in a wheeled chair. Another stunt she did was to put
lampblack all over the tenor's glove and he wiped it off on the prima's
shoulders so she looked like a zebra in a bathing suit, and every time
she would tell the firemen when the chorus men were getting fresh
courage by smoking cigarettes in their dressing rooms, but that is all
over now and my stage career is ended until I spend all this surplus
cash. I take it on the run for that dear Kansas tomorrow, so I think I
will go and see if Estelle has finished packing. Try and be good while I
am gone, and if anything happens for goodness sake wire me, for out in
that neck of the woods even paying for telegrams from New York is a
pleasure. Au revoir."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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